After a nice lunch and waterfront stroll it was back to the trenches..
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To an even bigger though slightly nicer antique mall.
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I swear my husband’s eyes lit up the moment we stepped inside.
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It’s times like these I’m glad he’s a cheapskate when it comes to purchases. The man wants a bargain and there weren’t many to be had here.
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That frog was about five grand.
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I thought about this for the man cave.
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And wouldn’t have minded having this, but it was badly cracked.
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More wooden yardsticks.
For the love of God… why?
🥴
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Interesting, but a hard pass.
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Giant clam anyone?
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Just looking at these shoes hurt my feet.
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You know that was risqué for its day.
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Yes, he bought the yardsticks.
Sigh.
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I was really tempted to buy this vintage cocktail shaker and glasses for the man cave. It was even aviation themed which was my husband’s career field.
Coulda, shoulda.
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This place went on forever and long story short we were there until it closed.
I purchased this.
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A $500 Confederate bond from the Civil War. When we lived down south I used to pick up Confederate currency now and then but I didn’t have one of these. It still has four coupons attached, though I think my chances of cashing them in are slim.
After showering off the sand from our beach walk and spraying my second hairdo of the day in place, I planned on spending the day at the resort since no one in their right mind goes out during a bad storm.
No one but my husband who refuses to waste a vacation day that is.
Here’s a little glimpse of the neighborhood right beyond our door. In the rain…
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As we headed over the bridge from Edisto, the sky did not look promising.
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But my husband was determined in his quest.
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Antiquing for my man is like the U.S. postal service…. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night will keep him from shopping for crap.
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I told him he could only buy what would fit in his suitcase. Thankfully this did not.
As usual I saw some ridiculous things…
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Fur trimmed sleigh?
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Ah, the vomit clock.
A time honored treasure.
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Its little demon hand beckoned…
But I ran for my life.
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The husband has a weird obsession with vintage wooden advertising yard sticks and was bound and determined to come home with these… even though I assured him they wouldn’t fit in his bag.
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Southern self help book.
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7 sticks of butter? This makes a wonderful last meal before your arteries snap shut and your heart gives out.
We wandered around the store until the storm got bad enough that the owner wanted to close. Husband bought his yardsticks and a few other small items including this….
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No, he doesn’t cook. But it definitely qualified as quirky.
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In particular this recipe – which was so wrong, it was right.
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My only purchase requires a bit of explanation.
Last Christmas our state lottery ran a commercial about the joys of regifting. (Don’t roll your eyes, we’ve all done it.) The ad was a huge hit… funny and heartwarming and everyone loved it.
Take a look.
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So when I turned the final corner of the store and saw this sitting on a shelf?
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I knew it was $8 well spent and couldn’t wait to see my girlfriend’s face when she opened her gift.
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Store closing around us and bad weather moving in, my husband wanted to go out to lunch. Not surprisingly everything was closed because, ya know… mini hurricane.
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Lunch was at Hardees. And I use the word lunch loosely because whatever that sandwich was it didn’t resemble food as I know it. 🤢
When I finally dragged the other half back to the resort, the pelicans were turned to the wind ready to ride out the storm.
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It’s hard to tell, but the wind was really howling. Watch the palm tree in between the buildings on the upper left.
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The afternoon and evening of Vacation Day 4 was spent playing gin rummy (with a deck that had all 4 jacks)…
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And eating a box of this…
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Which I’d never seen before… but heartily enjoyed. Beer + cheese + pasta = happiness.
We decided to beat the crazy Damn it, I have to take the wife out because it’s February 14th again Valentines Day crowds and spent yesterday having fun instead. When you’ve been married as long as we have, big romantic gestures are a thing of the past… and that’s fine. We started the day with a light lunch and cocktail at our local pub and then hit some antique stores.
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Where someone made art out of discarded lobster shells. Quirky, if not slightly disturbing.
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They say necessity is the mother of invention and this sled with skis seems to prove the adage.
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I found one vintage beer crate but it was full of bottles I didn’t want and a rotted bottom that wouldn’t hold my vinyl for long.. so I passed.
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Here’s the husband examining what was tagged as “A turban egg beater from the late 1800’s”
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Not seeing any colorful head coverings we realized the disc said “turbine egg beater”…. which, when you think about it, is equally as puzzling.
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Remember my post about Maine inventing chewing gum the other day? Glad the husband didn’t see this.
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After an afternoon of antiquing we ended at one of our favorite restaurants for dinner which was blissfully empty when we arrived.
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After a few lemon drop martinis and a fabulous cup of smoky clam chowder, dinner.
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Pan seared panko haddock with garlic Parmesan mashed potatoes, almond compound butter green beans, crispy leeks and lemon dill aioli paired well with a blackberry margarita for me.
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And a very rare Wagyu beef filet with red wine demi glacé, pickled peppers, pea tendrils and maple butter roasted carrots for the husband. Both meals were fabulous as usual and we shared a coffee crème brûlée that we devoured too quickly to photograph.
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So today.. on the actual day, we exchanged cards and my other half gave me a fancy cupcake and a box of truffles.
Alright, there were originally six truffles in the box and I took the picture at 8:00am.
The husband and I recently celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary and to be honest, at this point it’s hard to remember a time when we weren’t married. Although looking back at the first ever picture of us together… you know, during those 6 long days of dating before we wed …
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It’s even harder to remember being that young.
Our 39th started out with the delivery of a giant basket of flowers and the exchange of cards.
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We planned to spend the day doing something fun and end with a nice meal. Unfortunately it was the beginning of the week and thanks to post Covid understaffing and the slow winter season in Maine, everywhere I wanted to go was closed. After wasting a few hours driving along the coast….
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We opted for lunch at the Dockside Grill.
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Planning on a larger meal for dinner, we chose light fare. Chicken Caesar salad for me, French onion soup for the spouse.
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One cocktail for me, one beer for the spouse… with tip? $86. For soup and salad! This is getting ridiculous.
By then it was early afternoon and we were still searching for something fun to do… so we sat with our phones Googling like mad. I opted for a museum, but the ones we haven’t already visited were hours away. I did find a quirky cabinet of curiosities worth seeing, but after reading there was no heat in the building? My desire to go quickly waned.
Fun be damned, we ended up antiquing instead. At least the husband was happy.
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I saw these clever mussel shell Christmas trees on sale and thought about getting one, but they were so delicate I didn’t see it traveling or storing well.
As usual, there were some unexplainable items for sale. Most notably, this…
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Made entirely of glass, I can’t imagine anyone wanting that gracing their coffee table.
After a few antique stores, we were back on Google checking our favorite special occasion dinner spots. Par for the course? Every single one of them was closed. By then I was thoroughly disgusted and ready to go home and make a sandwich but the husband wanted another piece of fabulous cheesecake so we ended the day at the same restaurant where I was served crab balls instead of cakes a while back.
I won’t bore you with food photos but the mussels were good and made more interesting by being served with polenta frittes.
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Crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside. Dipped in the white wine garlic sauce? A meal in itself.
A recent antiquing day trip to search for a final alcoholic crate left me empty handed but did result in a few chuckles.
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Yum.
Not.
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I think I had one very similar to this when I was a kid.
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Bloomers.. complete with reinforced crotch. Who could ask for more?
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I’ve been looking for an old crank phone like this for the man cave. But this one didn’t crank and was missing parts … so for $350, I left it there.
And speaking of the man cave…
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I’ve started to migrate my vinyl out there, though there isn’t enough room in any one spot to line up the crates in a row.
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Guess they’ll have to be scattered here and there.
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And if you’re wondering what’s going on here, it’s the husband breaking his back trying to upend a vintage glass water bottle into the cooler. He’s collected the damn things for years and wants to replace all the plastic containers it came with.
The search for vintage beer or whisky crates continues…
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And it’s not going well. Crates abound, but none of them are alcohol related… so boo to that.
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If these weren’t so expensive I might have grabbed them. Bound to be interesting reading.
And because you never know what you’ll find at antique stores?
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A bag of ducks.
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I’ve seen this type of taxidermy before and it always stupefies me. Did they only kill the front half?
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By all means, feed them. And do it immediately… before they suck out your soul while you sleep.
**shivers**
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I tried to talk the husband into buying this antique incubation table but he was having none of it. I know he won’t let me have chickens, but it would have been great for keeping hors d’oeuvres warm in the man cave.
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I examined this booklet and found absolutely nothing new.
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Hutch made of tree bark? Um… no. Lord Dudley would be climbing it on a daily basis.
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I have no explanation for this whatsoever.
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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 